'Timeless Mucha' at Vladem Contemporary shows Czech artist's continued global appeal

The look of art nouveau is so closely associated with the Czech artist Alphonse Mucha that it has sometimes been called “le style Mucha.”

His characteristic flowing lines, inspired by botanical motifs and long, curling tendrils of hair, became a prominent aesthetic idiom across European art, architecture, furniture design, illustration and advertising in the decades preceding World War I.

With the rise of cubism, expressionism, constructivism, abstract art and dada, art nouveau no longer looked new. But that didn’t mean it had ceased to be relevant. As the exhibition “Timeless Mucha: The Magic of Line” at the New Mexico Museum of Art’s Vladem Contemporary in Santa Fe demonstrates, Mucha’s influence of on art and culture has only expanded in the decades since the artist’s death in 1939.

The exhibition opens Friday, June 20, and runs through Sept. 20.

Marcus Mucha, the great-grandson of Alphonse, directs the Mucha Foundation, which organized “Timeless Mucha.” He said the foundation wanted to emphasize Alphonse Mucha’s lasting impact on artists from marginalized communities and artistic subcultures around the world.

“Even though he might have disappeared off the radar of Western art history for a period of time in the second half of the 20th century, there were all sorts of communities of artists — particularly artists who might have had a hard time finding their place in the artistic mainstream — who found something in his work that spoke to them,” Mucha said.

“You see this, for example, with the female manga artists in the 1970s. At that time manga was very much a boys’ club, and it was very difficult for these artists to get a break,” he said. “But what they found with Mucha’s work was something to let them express more freedom. And that was both aesthetically — his line work inspired them — but also in terms of his philosophy, like they created these stories around freedom.”

“You see this also with Latin American comic book artists in the 1990s, again (inspired by) his bigger narratives of freedom,” Mucha said.

In addition to Alphonse Mucha’s work, the exhibition presents work by these and other artists who have been influenced by Mucha over the decades, including Alton Kelley, who designed posters for the Grateful Dead.

“Mucha’s art transcended its time, becoming a bridge between the fine and decorative arts and inspiring artists from the psychedelic era to contemporary manga creators,” Mark White, New Mexico Museum of Art’s executive director, said.

Marcus Mucha said his great-grandfather’s legacy continues even beyond the art in the exhibition. The Mucha Foundation worked closely on the Netflix show “Arcane,” which won several Emmys in 2022 for its animation in “le style Mucha.” Mucha thinks his great-grandfather would be especially pleased to learn that his work has been embraced by people of all nationalities, cultures and classes.

“He always wanted his art to be a kind of universal benefit to humanity,” Mucha said, “And to be a bridge between different peoples and different cultures, and to help people connect. He said, ‘I never wanted my art to be for the salons of the elite, but for everybody.’”

Marcus Mucha will travel to New Mexico from the Czech Republic for the exhibition.

“I will be speaking on the 24th of July, which happens to be Alphonse’s 165th birthday,” he said. “I cannot convey how excited I am to come to New Mexico.”

He said he hopes Indigenous artists in New Mexico will find the exhibition interesting, as well, since Alphonse Mucha had a deep appreciation for Indigenous art.

“I understand that in New Mexico there’s a long history of Native American culture, and when Alphonse visited America, that was something that really spoke to him,” Mucha said. “When he came to America, he did spend a lot of time with Native American peoples, and his belief was that there was something deep in those Native American roots that was an expression of a truly American art.”

Alphonse Mucha even drew parallels to his own art, which was deeply rooted in pre-Christian folk traditions.

“When he created art nouveau, he didn’t necessarily feel that his ‘art nouveau’ was new, because he felt that it was coming out of his Czech roots,” Mucha said.

“Timeless Mucha” gives audiences a chance to consider Alphonse Mucha’s work in the context of everything that came before and after it, and to see how not only his style but how his Bohemian sense of freedom continues to inspire new generations of artists.

'Timeless Mucha' at Vladem Contemporary shows Czech artist's continued global appeal